Perfect Couple (Superlatives 2)

“Really?” I could not have been more astonished that he’d said this.

“Yes, really. You look sexy in those glasses. Wear them and surprise me when you’re gunning for a little something extra.”

“Noted. Okay, you’re done.” I attached my camera to my tripod and set it to take five photos. Then I took my smaller camera out of my pocket and posed where Brody had been standing. Now I had a picture of me taking a picture.

I scrolled through the view screen, then showed Brody. “Here’s what I was thinking of for the yearbook. We’ll use this one of me, side by side with this one of you.” I flipped back to the best photo of him grinning, on the verge of cracking up. “Before, we weren’t a couple. The joke in the picture was going to be that we looked like one. Now we are a couple. The joke in the picture is that we’re separate.”

“I don’t get it,” he said.

Xavier Pilkington arrived in the courtyard. We gave him a lukewarm welcome, then eyed each other again.

“I know this is your last day to take these,” Brody said. “And Lord knows you don’t need another guy making trouble for you.”

“Thanks for recognizing that.”

“I’m just saying, if I had my choice for this picture, we would be together.”

*   *   *

I stayed up the entire night perfecting the Superlatives photos. Mom knocked on my door around midnight and told me with a yawn to go to bed. I lied and said that I would. Six hours later, I showered and schlumped over to the B & B to help her with breakfast. By the time I got to school, I was completely brain dead. This must have been what it felt like to be our classmate Jason Price, who came to school stoned.

Lucky for me, the beginning-of-school testing frenzy had died down. I was able to stare into space through my first three classes and avoid Kennedy by sleeping through journalism, since my work there, at least for the yearbook, was done.

I woke, slowly realizing that people were shifting their chairs and talking more loudly in anticipation of the ending bell. As I sat up, blinking, Quinn turned around in his seat, watching me.

“You finally stood up to Kennedy, like I told you,” he whispered. “Congratulations!”

“And this is what I have to show for it,” I said, yawning.

“Plus Brody,” Quinn pointed out.

“Plus I quit the yearbook.”

“That’s where you went wrong,” Quinn said. “I told you to stop worrying about how things looked. You only quit to save face.”

Had I? My brain wasn’t working well enough for me to remember clearly what I’d been thinking.

“Come on.” He put his arm around me and half dragged me to study hall. I muttered a hello to Brody in the desk across the aisle from mine and folded myself onto my desktop, Brody style.

“Are you going to make it?” he asked. I felt him fingering strands of my hair away from my face.

“Mmmm,” I said. “And I’ll be at the game to watch you play, but I’m afraid I can’t go out with you after. Bedtime. Catch up with you Saturday.”

He chuckled. “That’s fine.”

When I woke, the bell was ringing. It wasn’t the end of study hall, though. I’d slept right through lunch. Ms. Patel’s classroom was dark and empty. A salad, a container of yogurt, and a drink sat waiting for me on Brody’s desk.

13

I RODE WITH TIA AND will to the game that night. Brody couldn’t take me because football players didn’t go home on game days. They stayed at school until the game was over. And after Will heard why I wasn’t at lunch, he told Tia not to let me drive myself. He insisted that driving while sleep-deprived was like driving drunk. The way I felt, I believed him.

Much as I longed for bed, I tried to enjoy my last game on the sidelines. Since I’d quit the yearbook, Mr. Oakley would revoke my press pass when he returned on Monday. For now, I snapped the best photos I could and kept my eyes on the game.

In the first quarter, the visiting team ran some trick plays and got down to our ten-yard line. Alarming! Mr. Oakley had taught me that the first team to score had the advantage, because morale was on their side after that. To stop the other team from getting on the scoreboard first, our defense had to prevent them from making a touchdown for three more downs.

But after the next play, I couldn’t focus on the excitement. My attention was drawn to Brody not acting excited, not even watching.

He sat alone on the bench, feet spread in front of him, arms slack by his sides with his palms up, eyes closed. Underneath his jersey and pads, his chest expanded in long, deep breaths. Another player walked by and socked him on the padded shoulder. He didn’t move or even open his eyes.

He was relaxing like I’d taught him. I only hoped this was the answer he’d been searching for.

When the screams of the crowd let him know our defense had held and the visiting team’s chances had run out, Brody jumped up. He pulled on his helmet as he ran for the field.

By the end of his first play, I could tell something was different from the last game. Relaxed and in the zone, he managed to complete pass after last-second pass. He waited until he was about to get sacked to toss the ball to our star running back or bullet it to a fullback. With every play, he proved why the local newspaper had fawned over him during the summer.

Brody Larson was back.

And I had helped.

“Harper,” called a young woman’s voice. I turned around. Brody’s sister stood on the other side of the fence, holding one of the chain links. I remembered her vaguely because she’d been a senior when we were sophomores, but I would have known who she was anyway because she looked so much like Brody, with light brown hair and clear green eyes.